


Escape Artist

by bandages



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Infinity War spoilers, Insomnia, IronStrange, M/M, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, kind of i mean theres a ref in there but yknow jic, tony needs a sleep and a hug, what a ship name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 09:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14931237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandages/pseuds/bandages
Summary: " Tony buries himself in a shell of busywork to occupy his mind, keep the memories at bay. But the dam always inevitably breaks, and it’s never pretty when it does. "





	Escape Artist

“Stark.”

No response, other than the telltale blips and clicking of keys. Stephen sighs, waits a beat before trying again a little loud. “Tony.”

“Huh?” Tony barely glances over his shoulder, attention glued to the many brightly lit blue screens hovering in his line of sight. “Yeah just, y’know, go ahead and scare the shit outta me. Not like I’m in the dark, alone, with my back to the door or anything. That’s fine. Need somethin’?”

His fingers tap idly away, rapidly switching between this screen and that, like he can’t decide on which is the most important. Occasionally sparks will fly from some tool in his hand, and Strange catches sight of what appears to be a bionic arm; or simply a hand, from his perspective.

Strange exhales all the air in his lungs. He had to at least be _somewhat_ aware it was 4 in the morning. For the sake of all the people on planet Earth that relied on him, he wished for that much.  
  
“No, I think you’re the one needing something.” Strange replies, placing a hand on Tony’s shoulder only when he’s sure he can see it beforehand. He’s learned Tony’s boundaries by now, and unannounced touching is _way_ beyond the line.

“Huh, cryptic. Yeah I’d prefer English, please, we talked about this.” Tony says, voice muffled around the pen that has somehow found its way into his mouth.

“It’s four in the morning, Stark.” Strange can hear the rasp of sleep in his own voice, empty bed having prompted him to search out the absent other half. “Take a break.”

“I had one at 12, five more minutes, tops. Promise.” He’s rambling again, maybe it’s a hypomania episode coming on.

That’s a rabbit hole Strange tries not to let his mind travel down if he can avoid it. Because if it’s not hypomania keeping him up, it’s flashbacks. Tony buries himself in a shell of work to busy himself, keep the memories at bay. But the dam always inevitably breaks, and it’s never pretty when it does.

Whatever it is keeping him at that desk for hours on end, Tony clearly has no intent to talk about it anytime soon. Which would be fine, if he would just get some sleep.

“Alright. Five minutes.”

Strange promptly rounds the chair Tony is relaxed onto, climbs into Tony’s lap reverse until his legs straddle either side and he can rest his head over the crook of his neck. His arms dangle over the others shoulders, absently flipping through a book which he plucks from a quick portal to the library.

“Whoa, whoa. _Whoa_.” Tony laughs, on the verge of sheepish, shifting in his seat to accustom the new weight. “Take me to dinner first.”

“I have.” Strange replies flatly, allowing himself a small, unseen smirk. “Twice, if memory serves me right.”

A couple of clicking noises, a robotic beep. “No no, first one was on me I distinctly remember it.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I’m a billionaire, of course I don’t.” Tony’s words are only slightly muffled through the fabric of Strange’s sleep shirt, pressed just against the side of his mouth. “So what’s your excuse anyway.”

Strange blinks, eyebrows knitting together. “Excuse for what?”

“What’re you up so late for, huh? Still hurtin’?”

In truth, yes; his joints tend to flare up more during storms. It rained all day, so naturally he’d expect to ache all night. But pain isn’t what pulled him from the warmth of their bed. His mind was whirling with all the things he could possibly worry about happening to Tony, now or ever. Because he’s seen most of them, in too many timelines to count; too many timelines period.  
  
The one where Tony isolates himself completely, shuts away the world behind locked doors and closed windows, haunts him the most.

Over the months spent with the self proclaimed genius, Strange has picked up on a few things. Not just the tiny pet peeves (“I swear to God if that guy pulls out his phone one more time during this movie I’m gonna break it, buy him a new one, mail it to him, and break that one too.” “For the love of all things holy SEIZE THE GAP, ASSHOLE.”).  
Not that those aren’t good to know, of course, because apparently Tony takes his Starbucks orders pretty seriously, and Lord help you if he’s having a bad hair day.

To any outsider, Tony Stark might as well be synonymous with ‘snarky smartass’, and many months ago, when they first met, Stephen would have agreed with that statement without a second thought.

It’s just one of those “blink and you’ll miss it” type of things.

The second Tony realizes something is wrong he drops it all. The sarcasm, the attitude; he knows when to stop pushing buttons. But there’s something concerning in that, almost frustrating.  Because if all that isn’t Tony, then it’s a cover up. Which begs the question: a cover up for what? Strange has only managed to get that far, what exactly is being concealed, well, that could be anything. Of course he has an idea or two.

Sure, he wasn’t there for all the panic attacks, he wasn’t there when he launched himself into a wormhole. He wasn’t there when he came back either.  
He wasn’t there the nights that Pepper would leave him alone in bed, chest heaving to breathe in air that his desperate lungs refused to provide him, little reels of tape that would put a splatter film to shame swimming in his mind.

But he _was_ there when all of this tumbled from Tony’s mouth one very late night, and it was decided then and there that something was very wrong, and no one was paying close enough attention to see it.

Strange is a lot of things, but naÏve isn’t one. Tony’s putting up a front, diving neck deep into project after project for almost a week straight because his brain won’t shut off. A quick scan of his arms proves his suspicions further; he’s been scratching at his arms again. Angry, pink marks leave a trail down each forearms, the pattern reminiscent of tire marks from a car that’s gone rogue.

Against his better judgement, Strange tosses his book aside and exchanges the leftover space to pull Tony closer. Tony tenses beneath him, just a bit.

“You know, you don’t have to do this all on your own.” Strange says, and counts the seconds of silence that follows.

“Sorry, since when did _you_ get a master’s in electrical engineering?” Tony replies, and Stephen can hear the smirk in his voice. “Thought you were more into the medical shit.”

If that was meant to be a direct shot at Stephen’s, well, _specific interests_ (something like ‘what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom’), he lets it slide. Just this once. “Yes, I was a surgeon once upon a time. And you know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” The response is almost robotic. “Yeah no I’m good, really. How we doin’ on time? 3 minutes left? Almost done, promise. FRIDAY? Set a timer for 3 minutes.”

“3 minutes starting now, Mr. Stark.”

Stephen breathes deep, steadies himself to meet Tony’s eyes as he pulls himself from the others grasp.

“Tony I’m not trying to pull you away from your work, I know it’s important to you. This isn’t about that.” Still in his lap, Tony stares, searching Stephen’s face for something he can’t seem to find. “You’re hurting. And trust me, Tony, the whole ‘if you don’t look at the wound you won’t even feel it’ thing is an old wives tale. I would know.”

Tony audibly swallows, and damn him for letting his attention flicker down to Stephen’s hands. His chest heaves, words form and fall apart between his lips.

“I’m scared, Tony.” Stephen continues, feeling a pair of hands slip over his own to cradle them. “I’m scared you’re going to dig yourself into this hole so deep I won’t be able to reach you anymore. And that—”

Tony’s pulling him forward by the nape of his neck, lets their foreheads rest together, drink in the feeling of his breath against his skin. And they stay like that, for as long as they both need, then a little longer.

“Can you promise me something?” Strange’s voice is barely a whisper, and he hears Tony hum an agreement. He’s screwed his eyes shut at some point and can’t bring himself to open them just yet because Tony sounds like he might break at any moment. “If it gets… bad, if this doesn’t help you anymore, someday, whenever that day is— you tell me. And we’ll fight our way out of that together, that’s all I ask.”

When he does open his eyes he’s met with a pair of twinkling brown eyes, filled to the brim with adoration in a way that makes his stomach flip. Tony pushes upwards to press a kiss to Stephen’s lips, chaste and simple and all that it needs to be.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Tony grins, strokes a thumb idly up and down the back of Stephen’s neck as he speaks. “Y’know I gotta say I half expected you to come in here and chew me out for… all this.”

Stephen scoffs. “‘All of this’ is your life’s work it’s—” Stephen’s eyes catch something beyond Tony. “And it’s on fire.”

Tony blinks, very nearly breaks his spine in two whipping around to see that, yes, he _did_ leave the soldering iron on and, yes, the forearm of the Iron Man themed bionic arm he’d spent the last two days on was now coated in flames.

“Oh Jesus tap-dancing Christ I built robots for this I _built_ , _robots_ , specifically to keep this from— oh my God screw it, I’m starting over.”

Sputtering a laugh, Stephen ruffles the others hair, keeping him firmly planted in his chair when he goes to move. Tony turns, wide eyed. “You want the house to catch on fire? Is that it? That’s the evil plan?”

“No. The plan is to get you in bed.” Stephen replies.

“What then, doc?”  
“Put out the fire, come to bed, and find out.”

Stephen places a quick kiss to Tony’s palm and promptly slides off Tony’s lap.

There’s a click or two, some tech switched on to handle the work of keeping the house from being set ablaze. Then fabric rustles behind him and suddenly Tony’s lips are against his; hungry and desperate. Stephen returns tenfold, fingers flying under his shirt and finding Tony’s shoulder blades to scrape into skin. Not enough to pierce but enough to tease the pain, and the growl that Tony produces sounds almost feral.

Somewhere in the mix of it, Strange manages to escape the sickeningly sweet haze clouding his mind, at least long enough to get a firm grasp on Tony’s hair and pull back, hard. Tony in return groans low in his chest, face flushed a lovely shade of pink.

  
“Anthony, I did say come to bed _first_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Infinity War tore me to shreds so here's something I wrote to survive the wait for Avengers 4!! Boy I Die!!!


End file.
